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Tour of California Kicks Off Sunday

LOS ANGELES, CA (BRAIN)—The Tour of California kicks off Sunday in Nevada City and many of the biggest names in cycling will be competing including Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer.

The 2010 Amgen Tour of California will travel to 16 host cities throughout the state over the course of eight days from May 16-23. After four years of being positioned in February, the date change will allow the Tour de France-style road race to visit locations that wouldn’t have been possible in February, including the very first mountain-top finish in race history.

“For the 2010 Amgen Tour of California we had the unique opportunity to move our race to a part of the year when we are almost guaranteed great weather in California,” said Andrew Messick, president of AEG Sports. “This timing will help us to better showcase the beautiful features the state of California has to offer, while allowing us to travel to parts of the state that just weren’t feasible in previous years.”

The Amgen Tour of California will cover more than 750 miles of beautiful California terrain, beginning with the first ever visit to Nevada City, CA, which will also be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Nevada City Classic, in which many notable riders got their start. The eight-day race will travel through some of the state’s most scenic landmarks, with the overall finish taking place in title-sponsor Amgen’s hometown community of Thousand Oaks.

The 16 official stage start and finish locations that have been selected for the 2010 race include: Nevada City (new city for 2010), Sacramento, Davis, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Modesto, Visalia, Bakersfield (new city for 2010), Pasadena, Big Bear Lake (new city for 2010), Los Angeles (new city for 2009) and Thousand Oaks/Westlake Village (new city for 2010)/Agoura Hills (new city for 2010).

“Choosing the host cities for the Amgen Tour of California gets more and more difficult every year, as interest in the race continues to grow throughout the state,” Messick said. “We are fortunate to have visited some of the best cities in the state during the last four years and the list keeps growing with the addition of four brand new cities in 2010.”